How To Motivate Yourself

It is natural for your willpower to deplete during the day. Biological factors like napping, eating or resting can help to recharge your willpower but there are other, more effective ways to motivate yourself.

#1 Break A Task Down

Big tasks will drain your willpower quickly. Procrastination is a direct consequence of tasks that are too big to accomplish at once.

If your task is to lose 60 pounds you may be motivated for two weeks before you give up.

If your task is to write a book with 800 pages you may give up after the first 150 pages.

If your task is to climb the Mount Everest you will probably not even start at all.

The trick is to break those tasks down into very, very small goals. Our brain likes to accomplish goals and accomplishing a lot of small goals will flood your body with dopamine which keeps you motivated.

Set the goal to lose two pounds. And once you lost them set the goal to lose another two pounds. And another two pounds. Losing two pounds is easy. Losing 60 pounds isn´t.

Write one page a day instead of focusing on writing the whole book. Just one page a day. It takes less than 30 minutes to do that. You accomplish a small goal every day.

Our willpower is almost unlimited but our brains are programmed to save energy whenever possible. Your brain doesn´t want you to waste your precious energy on big tasks. Smaller tasks that are easy to accomplish are fine.

Set the bar low and break down your goals into tiny tasks that only take a short amount of time to accomplish.

#2 Talk Yourself Into Success

Use self-talk to convince yourself that you are able to reach your goals.

If you are telling yourself subconsciously that you are going to fail anyway you WILL fail. Tell yourself that you will reach your goal no matter what for a long time you WILL accomplish your goal.

Telling yourself that you have unlimited willpower can help, too. The truth is: If you believe you have limited willpower you are right. If you believe you have unlimited willpower you are right, too!

In theory humans have unlimited willpower. In reality your brain doesn´t want you to access this unlimited amount of willpower to save energy. Once you believe in unlimited willpower you will start to learn how to tap into your willpower and gain endless discipline.

#3 Think About Your Why

Think about the reason you want to accomplish the goal you set.

Maybe you want to lose weight to find a partner. Maybe you want to establish yourself as an author. Maybe you want to make a ton of money. Maybe you want to help others to avoid the mistakes you made.

There is no wrong reason to do anything. Take a piece of paper and write down exactly why you want to accomplish your goal. Do not censor yourself, just let your thoughts spill on the sheet.

Read your reason why at least once a day. Add points to your paper if your Why changes. Keep it up to date.

You do not have to share your Why with anyone if you don´t want to. Your reason may be very personal but it has to be important enough to you to stick to your goals. If your Why is not strong enough you are about to fail.

Your own thoughts are the only thing you have full control over. Use that to your advantage, fellow superhero!

Try to call yourself a health-nut for two months. Talk to yourself about how crazy you are about healthy food and fitness. You will notice that the image of yourself starts to change. You subconsciously start to make healthier choices which require less willpower.

Use positive self-talk like “I can”, “I am” and “I will”. It works better than “I am not”, “I can not”, etc.

It is normal to feel weird during the first weeks practicing self-talk but you will get used to it soon. And the benefits you reap are endless!

Every step on its own will already bring you closer to success. Combine all four tips for unlimited willpower to reach any goal you put your mind on.